LexChoice Finance

Financial News and Information

Personal Finance Success is Rather Simple, but Not Easy

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You probably already know that most things in life are simple but not easy. I was inspired today by Free Money Finance and their article entitled “Personal Finance Success is Rather Simple, but Not Easy“. The article references Larry Winget and his explination of how everthing in life comes down to simple things.

There are so many things we already know but pay thousands of dollars for other people to tell us what we already know and then don’t listen. For example if you want to lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more. If you burn more calories than you eat the weight will drop. In personal finances if you spend less money than you make you will have money to put into savings or pay off debt. Those are really simple concepts to understand but not easy to implement.

Every year we pay thousands of dollars for diet books, exercise videos, diet pills and weight loss specialists. Most of that money is thrown down the drain because no action is taken.  We spend thousands of dollars on books, magazines and videos in hopes of finding the next get out of debt solution only to realize we’ve wasted another 29.95 on a worthless video that told me us to create a budget and spend less than we earn.

The answer to our problems in life are simple, but in order to solve the problems we have to take action!

The difficulty of financial logic (part two of two)

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,I spoke briefly about the reward points offered by Speedway in the first post. My second point of this post is to explain how to follow logic when using the reward system. Speedway’s reward system is a great way to help offset the cost of gas and convenience food. I myself have trouble fighting the temptation for a convenient cup of coffee on the way to work, while stopping to fill up the car with gas. These losses in control, buying habits do however result in accumulated points with my rewards card.

Speedway also offers special promotions such as 1000 bonus points for the purchase of a $50 gift card to Speedway. I always take advantage of this offer because I spend the money on gas anyway so why not get the extra 1000 bonus points and pay for my gas with the gift card.

So, where does the difficulty in financial logic come into play with the rewards system? It’s the redemption process. Speedway offers several reward options such as merchandise, food, store gift cards and restaurant gift cards. I can easily avoid the merchandise and food offers. I’m not a big fan of convenient store food or merchandise so it’s easy for me to skip out on these items. However, the problem arises when I’m offered a gift card to a restaurant such as Applebee’s.

Below is a chart showing the reward options and point costs to redeem. I have based my values based on the $200 Speedway cash gift card redemption. This is the logical best value because it can be used for fuel. The food and merchandise are the best in-store value redemptions, but not the best actual redemptions, because these items are way over-priced if purchased somewhere else.

After doing the math 1 point is worth $0.001064, below is my chart.

Reward

Point Cost

Actual Cost

Any Size Coffee or Cappuccino

750

$ 0.80

Any Size Fountain, Speedy Freeze or Speedy Tea

750

$ 0.80

Pleasant Hill Ovens Pastry

750

$ 0.80

Any Roller Grill Item

750

$ 0.80

20oz Enon Springs Water

750

$ 0.80

Any King Size Candy

1,250

$ 1.33

7UP 2-liter

1,250

$ 1.33

Any Hot Sandwich or Speedy Snack

1,250

$ 1.33

Nachos

1,250

$ 1.33

PowerBar Pure and Simple

1,250

$ 1.33

Wrigley Five Rain Gum

1,250

$ 1.33

Shockwave 16oz Energy Drink

1,250

$ 1.33

Shockwave Energy Shots

1,250

$ 1.33

Slice of Pizza

1,250

$ 1.33

Coke, Diet Coke, or Sprite 1 Liter

1,500

$ 1.60

Any Size Iced Coffee or Frozen Specialty Drink

1,750

$ 1.86

Combos

1,750

$ 1.86

Evian 1 Liter

1,750

$ 1.86

Slim Jim Monster

1,750

$ 1.86

Any Cold Sub Sandwich

2,500

$ 2.66

20oz Coffee Travel Mug with Fill

2,500

$ 2.66

Speedy Wash “The Works” Car Wash

5,500

$ 5.85

Fuel Discount Rewards

Fuel Savings 10¢ per gallon discount

1,750

$ 1.86

Fuel Savings 25¢ per gallon discount

4,375

$ 4.66

Fuel Savings 50¢ per gallon discount

8,750

$ 9.31

Fuel Discounts are not available in MI & WI.

Gift Card Rewards

$10 Food & Merchandise Card

7,500

$ 7.98

$10 Speedy Cash Gift Card

9,850

$ 10.48

$10 Gaia Gift Card

10,000

$ 10.64

$10 IMVU Gift Card

10,000

$ 10.64

$10 Nexon Gift Card

10,000

$ 10.64

$15 iTunes Gift Card

15,000

$ 15.96

$25 Food & Merchandise Card

17,000

$ 18.09

Microsoft Xbox 3-month $19.99

20,000

$ 21.29

Microsoft Xbox 1,600 Pts $19.99

20,000

$ 21.29

$20 Sony PlayStation Gift Card

20,000

$ 21.29

$25 Speedy Cash Gift Card

24,500

$ 26.08

$25 Bass Pro Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Buffalo Wild Wings Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Hooters Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Outback Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 iTunes Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Lowe’s Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Applebee’s Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Game Stop Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Barnes & Noble Gift Card

25,000

$ 26.61

$25 Vanilla Visa Gift Card

27,000

$ 28.74

$50 Food & Merchandise Gift Card

33,000

$ 35.12

$50 Fuel Card plus 3¢ off per gallon

48,500

$ 51.62

$50 Applebee’s Gift Card

50,000

$ 53.22

$50 Lowe’s Gift Card

50,000

$ 53.22

$50 Vanilla Visa Gift Card

54,000

$ 57.47

$100 Food & Merchandise Card

65,000

$ 69.18

$100 Fuel Card plus 3 cents off per gallon

96,000

$ 102.17

$100 Vanilla Visa Gift Card

108,000

$ 114.95

$200 Fuel Card plus 3 cents off per gallon

190,000

$ 197.78

I did all this work to say that I have redeemed my points 3 times at Speedway since I started the program. Each time I choose the $50 Applebee’s Gift Card. The best deal is the $200 Fuel Card + $0.03 per gallon but for some reason I can’t help but redeem for the Applebee’s Gift Card. It’s something that’s fun and it seems like I am getting a free meal. Why do I have such a hard time redeeming for the fuel card and spending cash at Applebee’s? Anyone else have this problem?

The difficulty of financial logic (part one of two)

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As most of you know it’s sometimes very difficult to make the best financial choices all the time, even when the logical side of our brain tells you its wrong, we still often make the wrong choice. It’s obvious this is the case; otherwise American wouldn’t be in the debt crisis we are currently facing. Millions of Americans wouldn’t have lost their home to foreclosure or be facing foreclose in the near future. With this article I however want to take this topic down to a simpler thought. I want to talk about why we make small dumb financial choices each day that may not have a major impact on our lives, but do affect our finances.

I want to start with an everyday example. There is a convenient store / gas station chain located in the Midwest and Southern parts of the United States called Speedway. Many of the Speedways that I know today were once Super America stores but this is just side information. The point is they have a rewards program. For all your in store and fuel purchases you are awarded points. These points can be redeemed for merchandise, gift cards to Speedway or gift cards to other partner stores. Sounds like a great deal, right? Wrong!

First, the term convenient store means you are going to pay a lot more for any item you buy there because it’s convenient. You won’t have to wait in a long grocery store line to checkout and you can get your can of soda already chilled and ready to drink, but it will cost you, sometimes as much as 500%! For example, just the past week soda was on sale for $2.50 for a 12 pack. I admit this isn’t typical, but you can sometimes find these deals. A convenient store may charge as much as $1.00 for a can of pre-chilled soda. $0.21 for a grocery store soda versus $1.00 for a convenient store soda is about a 500% markup.

How can you solve this problem of convenient store robbery? The answer is pretty simple and you have a couple obvious options. First, don’t drink soda; it’s not good for you anyway. Second, pack a small cooler to take in the car when you leave the house. Fill it with cold soda and even snacks. If you plan to be on the road for a while it’s a great break from driving to stop and grab a snack.

Remember I said this was a two part post, stay tuned for part two very soon.

Extreme saving with coupon loopholes

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Last week I was introduced to a new world in savings. I’ve always know that you can save some extra money on groceries if you use coupons, but didn’t realize exactly how much until now. My sister-in-law told me about a group of extreme savers who take complete advantage of coupons and sales.

Always save unused coupons until they are expired. Many time grocery stores run sales based on the current coupons in the local paper. They try to avoid offering sale priced items at the same time coupons are introduced. If you save your coupons a week or two it’s very possible that sale priced items will overlap with coupons bringing extreme savings on your grocery bill.

This week I found my own first coupon loophole with Kroger. They are offering 3 – 12 packs of Coke for $10 and you also get 2 free boxes of Ritz crackers. I also found a coupon for $2 off any 2 – 12 packs of Coke. So for $8 I got 3 – 12 packs and 2 boxes of Ritz crackers.

There are entire websites and blogs dedicated to these types of deals. They do the research for you for general coupons. You can however do more research for local coupons and find great deals. From what I see you can save tons of money for a few hours of searching.

If you are the type that thinks saving $0.30 or $0.40 on an item isn’t worth your time, think about the whole shopping list. If you can find a coupon for 20 items you use everyday and save $0.40 on each item this adds up. Saving $8.00 per week over the course of a year is over $400 you will save! Next time you get the weekly paper don’t just throw those coupons away you may be sitting on a small gold mine!

Not as frugile as I thought

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For the past few years I’ve made an effort to track our spending and try to save money. I think we’ve done a great job at reducing our debt and building a good savings. We’ve also managed to purchase a home and also own an acre of land which we plan to build our “dream house” on in a few years. We’ve managed to do this by watching our spending and being blessed with great jobs.

For the past 8 years I’ve packed my lunch at least 4 of the 5 days of the work week. I usually drink the office coffee and only occasionally treat myself to some Gourmet coffee. We also try to eat dinner at home or go for fast food restaurants. We have a planned budget and for the most part stick to it, however recently I realized that maybe I’m not as frugal as I thought.

We’re in the middle of some construction projects at our work which we volunteered to do during our not so busy season. We’re tearing down walls, building walls, laying ceramic tile, ripping up carpet, putting up molding and painting.

After using a roller the entire day I pulled it off and tossed it in the trash. Take note it was an all purpose roller from a hardware store that probably cost about $1.00. A co-worker asked why did you throw the roller away, you know you can clean those out and use them again? Sure, I could have spent 15 minutes cleaning out the roller and using it again tomorrow after it dried, but was it really worth it?

I’ve tried cleaning out rollers before and from my experience they never work as good as a new one and besides, it’s $1.00. He informed me he had rollers that he had been using for years.

Maybe I should have saved the roller. I should have taken 15 minutes of my time and cleaned out the roller to use the next day. I could have saved the company $1.00. Any thoughts?